Peacemaker’s Steve Agee says he wants to team up with real-life best friend David Dastmalchian for a Polka-Dot Man prequel series. Agee, who has recently reprised his role as John Economos for the new HBO Max spinoff series, also provided the motion-capture performance for Sylvester Stallone’s King Shark in last year’s DCEU outing The Suicide Squad. With Peacemaker’s first three episodes dropping on HBO Max last week, fans are already clamoring for more of James Gunn’s hilarious take on the DC Universe.
Agee’s friend Dastmalchian, who is also known for playing Scott Lang’s friend Kurt in the MCU’s Ant-Man movies, is no stranger to comic-book roles. In addition to his work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Dastmalchian has also appeared in 2008’s The Dark Knight, in both the Gotham and The Flash television series, and voiced both Calendar Man and Penguin in last year's Batman: The Long Halloween. In 2019, Dastmalchian was cast as Abner Krill (aka Polka-Dot Man) in The Suicide Squad, a character based on an obscure Batman villain who threw explosive polka-dots at people. Gunn would ultimately work his trademark magic to turn this bizarre, and otherwise unknown, DC character into a bonafide fan-favorite member of the new Task Force X.
While Dastmalchian’s Polka-Dot Man was one of the many characters who did not survive to see the final credits in The Suicide Squad, Agee has suggested that he would love to see his character team up with Abner Krill for prequel spin-off series. Speaking with Looper, Agee suggested that aside from just wanting to work with Dastmalchian as a friend, he thought his character “was so deep and nuanced,” and he would relish the opportunity to see him collaborate with John Economos in a future project. Check out his full comments below:
"I got to say, Dave Dastmalchian is probably my best friend in real life. We've known each other for a while now. It was just amazing that James put us both in the same movie. I would love to, much like you, somehow see Polka-Dot Man used again maybe in a prequel, but I would love to work with Polka-Dot Man. I'd love to work with Dave just as a friend, but I thought the character of Polka-Dot Man was so deep and nuanced, that — as a selfish person wanting to work with my friend again, but also, I thought the character was amazing."
Agee certainly is not alone in appreciating what both Dastmalchian and Gunn were able to do with what the director had previously suggested was “the dumbest DC character of all time.” In the original comics, Polka-Dot Man made use of advanced technology which he weaponized and installed on his suit as different colored polka-dots. In The Suicide Squad, however, Gunn was able to provide his character with a rich alternate backstory that involved him being exposed to an interdimensional virus by his own mother in the hopes of turning him and his siblings into superheroes. While his siblings would all perish in the experiments, Abner was infected with explosive pustules he was constantly forced to expel from his body before they killed him. This tragic history, combined with Dastmalchian’s amazing performance as the troubled and chronically depressed meta-human, would earn the character a legion of fans and multiple calls for his return.
While Polka-Dot Man was ultimately crushed to death by Starro in the finale of The Suicide Squad, DC fans everywhere would love to see Dastmalchian reprise his role as the hapless superhero. As Agee suggests, a prequel series set before the events of both Peacemaker and The Suicide Squad would prove a perfect opportunity to achieve just that. Gunn himself has already indicated that he has other DC television projects in development, and a Polka-Dot Man series would fit perfectly with his unique sensibilities and twisted humor. In the meantime, however, fans still have plenty more laughs to look forward to as Peacemaker episode 4 is planned to hit HBO Max later this week.
Source: Looper
